Earlier this month, the photograph of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who drowned trying to flee to Greece with his brother and mother, horrified the world and focused its attention on the ongoing refugee crisis in Syria and throughout the Middle East.
Since the Syrian Civil War started nearly five years ago, more than 210,000 Syrians have been killed, and an estimated 10 million Syrians have been displaced inside the country or in camps in neighboring countries. As the Syrian Refugee crisis worsens and now spreads to Europe, many now question what the responsibility of the western world is in helping to resolve both the refugee crisis and the ongoing conflict in Syria.
Many nations and world leaders have attempted to lend aid to refugees seeking asylum. Turkey has taken in over 1.9 million refugees who have fled the conflict in Syria. Another 1.1 million have fled to Lebanon, nearly 637,000 have been taken in by Jordan, and Germany is expected to take in 800,000 refugees by the end of the year.
While many have been welcoming to the refugees, many throughout Europe have come out viscerally against accepting refugees. The Prime Minister of Slovakia has refused to accept any refugees and while a spokesperson for the Hungarian Government said they would abide resettlement of refuges, the government has also constructed a 109-mile razor tipped fence around its border to keep migrants out of their country.
Meanwhile the United States has accepted 1,500 refugees thus far and is preparing to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees. This figure would be allocated out of a U.S. quota of 75,000 total refugee admissions slated for the next fiscal year. Many Americans; however, fear that even this is too many. Congressional Republicans have raised concerns for months over the possibility that Syrian extremists, including ISIS sympathizers, could enter the country passing themselves off as refugees.
It is understandable that when the world is faced with a horrific crisis, that fear seizes the hearts of many. Undeniably, there are challenges when meeting a crisis of this magnitude. While the future is unclear; however, history is always there to guide us.
History most clearly remembers actions, or the lack there of. Following Kristallnacht, thousands of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria fled to the United States trying to escape the growing shadow of Nazism. Then as now, the conflict seemed to many Americans to be a distant one and none of our affairs. Then as now, many people feared what would happen if we accepted these refugees in the wake of the nation’s economic turmoil. Ultimately the United States never increased its quotas for refugees, and as a result many lives that could have been saved were lost.
We are once again faced as a nation with people seeking refuge from a faraway conflict. Men, women, and children all hoping to find peace and mercy in a world that they know is far too often chaotic and unmerciful. We can either chose to commit the same mistake twice, or we can act like the world leader that we truly want to be.
Cover Photo Credit: Takver/Flickr (CC by SA-2.0)
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Miami Priest Accused Of Hiring School Maintenance Worker Who Was Once Arrested For Prostitution
UPDATED- May 26, 5:25 PM EST
BREAKING- Father Pedro Corces has been asked to step down as the pastor of St. Rose of Lima according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Miami.
The principal of the school Sister Bernadette Keane has also been replaced by a Archdiocese official for the reminder of the school year
The announcements came in a letter emailed to parents at St. Rose on Thursday afternoon.
In it, Archbishop Thomas Wenski announced that he has asked for Father Pedro Corces to step down as pastor of St. Rose of Lima in an effort to fix the “fractured” spirit and unity at the church and its associated school after a group of parents and a private investigator published a 129 dossier of information filled with allegations against Father Corces.
This is developing and this story will be updated.
Read the full statement from Archbishop Thomas Wenski:
Original Story:
A group of concerned parents at St. Rose Of Lima School in Miami Shores have accused their parish priest, Father Pedro Corces, of putting children at the school in “grave danger” after he allegedly hired a man as a school maintenance worker who was once arrested on prostitution charges.
That allegation and many others were made in a 129 page “dossier” of information prepared by a group of parents at the school organized under the name of Christifidelis @ Saint Rose of Lima Miami Shores.
The group also paid a private investigator over $3,500 to surveil Father Corces to help them build a case against him. Once they could no longer afford the investigator’s services, parents took to surveilling Father Corces on their own.
The document was leaked to RISE NEWS on Friday afternoon and it alleges that Father Corces is in a relationship with a school maintenance worker named Juan Alberto Cardenas.
The group and the private investigator both assert that Cardenas has been arrested on three separate occasions including in 2000 after he allegedly offered oral sex to an undercover police officer for $15.
The private investigator said that he got a hold of Cardenas’ date of birth and then matched his mugshot photos to those found on social media and through surveillance to ensure it was the same person.
Cardenas was also arrested in 2002 on a charge of uttering forged bills and in 2004 for making false insurance claims.
The document also alleges that Father Corces takes frequent expensive vacations, sometimes with Cardenas and that he often spends the night at Cardenas’ condo where he pays for his employee’s cable bill.
This photo taken on March 11, 2016 shows Father Pedro Corces (L) and Alberto Cardenas (R) at the Flamingo Theater Bar where they watched a show by Cuban signer Carlos Varela. Photo Credit: Christifidelis
Christifidelis is a group of “faithful Catholics” according to group spokesperson Rosa Armesto.
Most of them have children at the school and they take the name of their group from a similar effort of unrelated activists who worked to uncover what they called a “homosexual super culture” in the Archdiocese of Miami in 2005.
The original Christifidelis came to national prominence after Gawker published their findings in 2011.
Many of the allegations Christifidelis leveled at Father Corces surround his sexuality and some of the document can read as being anti-gay.
RISE NEWS has only decided to report on some of the allegations after confirming the group’s findings with the private investigator involved in the investigation.
Background
Father Corces first came under scrutiny from some members of the St. Rose community after the shock announcement in January that the nuns that have run the school since 1981 were being asked to leave. Parents rebelled and demanded answers but received little in the way of clarification.
While publicly supporting the Archdiocese’s line that they had been asked to withdraw from St. Rose by the Motherhouse in Pennsylvania due to the declining supply of sisters in the United States, some of the nuns were privately telling parents that Father Corces had pushed them out.
As a result, the community became divided between the side of the nuns and that of the parish priest.
Some even feel that Father Corces lied to them about the situation and that he tried to stop parents from talking about it.
“There is undeniably a reign of intimidation from Fr. Pedro Corces,” Armesto said in a phone interview.
The Hunt For Answers
Christifidelis took serious actions in order to build their case about Father Corces.
Some of the information was gathered when a family that lives next to the rectory allowed cameras to be placed in rooms in their house to surveil activities there.
From that source and others, the group was able to determine that many people were coming and going into the rectory at all hours of the night, raising suspicions about who actually lives there.
“We’ve seen people over there who are not priests,” the man who owns the home next to the rectory said in an interview. He gave his name but asked for it not to be published after his wife objected. “A lot of weird things have been going on. It doesn’t look right.”
Other neighbors didn’t want to talk about the situation but one said that he hadn’t really noticed anything out of the ordinary since Father Corces had moved there a few years ago.
But according to the family that allowed their house to become a surveillance outpost, things are different.
“We used to have a little community thing for all of us that lived around the lake. We always had a Christmas get together. But since this guy [Father Corces] came here, things changed.”
Christifidelis also searched the trash left outside of the rectory on numerous occasions, where it claimed to find a tax form for a massage business that Cardenas runs.
“The fact that such form was filled in the rectory also suggests a closer relationship between Father Pedro and Alberto Cardenas than the usual boss‐subordinate relationship,” Christifidelis wrote in the report. “It also raises the question as to whether Father Pedro provides tax or financial advice of some type.”
A high-ranking school official who wished to remain anonymous due to concerns over potential retribution said that she became frustrated after discovering that there was no contact information on record for the maintenance workers.
She also said that it was widely known that three of the maintenance workers including Cardenas have keys to the rectory, which was not standard practice before the new workers were hired.
Surveillance photos allegedly showing Cardenas entering rectory. Photo Credit: Christifidelis
Cardenas was hired in 2015 as a worker at the school according to Christifidelis, about a year and a half after Father Corces fired a “significant portion” of the longstanding maintenance staff.
The firings came around Christmas of 2014 and were a surprise to many in the community.
Little information about the maintenance staff can be found on the school’s website.
In fact, on the “Staff Pictures 2016” page, four of the maintenance staff are the only people without pictures included. Cardenas’ name is not even on the page.
The maintenance staff has seemed to take a more low-key role in the life of the school since Father Corces fired most of them in 2014.
The new crew, including Cardenas has never appeared in the St. Rose yearbook for example, one of the few moments when a parent can physically see all the people who work around their children.
But a review of St. Rose yearbooks going back to 2008 shows that the maintenance staff were always included in the staff pictures section except for in 2015 and 2016.
Armesto, the Christifidelis spokesperson claimed that she saw a pre published version of the 2016 yearbook and that in it were the names of the maintenance workers without pictures. However, the final published version of the book does not include the names or pictures of the workers.
A group of parents at the school had hoped to hold a rosary prayer session before the 9 AM Mass on May 22 in order to pray for the “well-being of the parish”. It happened to also be the 28th anniversary of Father Corces’ ordination into the priesthood.
However they were not allowed to pray after being told by a priest that they needed to clear any sort of demonstration with the Archbishop.
When reached for comment via phone, Archdiocese spokesperson Mary Ross Agosta started laughing and said “Oh, you again,” to a RISE NEWS reporter.
When asked about the contents of the Christifidelis report, Ross Agosta refused to talk about them.
Ross Agosta then said that she had nothing to say and hung up the phone.
RISE NEWS has been unable to speak to Father Corces or Alberto Cardenas.
UPDATE #1- The Broward Palm Beach New Times is reporting that the Archdiocese of Miami has “initiated” an “investigation in accordance with canon law” into the accusations made against Father Corces.
UPDATE #2- St. Rose school officials sent home a letter to parents on Tuesday afternoon announcing that some “lay employees”- presumably some of the maintenance men have been placed on administrative leave by Archbishop Wenski pending an ongoing investigation into the allegations.
Here is the text of the full letter sent home to parents:
“Allegations of misconduct at St. Rose of Lima Parish not involving minors were brought to Archbishop Thomas Wenski last week. The Archbishop takes the allegations seriously. In accordance with canon law and Archdiocesan policies, the Archbishop immediately initiated an investigation that is ongoing. At the present time Father Corces is attending a previously scheduled retreat. The lay employees in question have been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.”
Read The Full Report.
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Fort Lauderdale Pizza Hut Won’t Deliver Pizzas To Black Neighborhood At Night
What’s New With This Story:
-A Fort Lauderdale Pizza Hut has a policy to not deliver pizzas to the Sistrunk Boulevard community after 7 PM.
-Sistrunk Boulevard has historically been an African-American community.
– A Pizza Hut manager told the Miami New Times that it was a “corporate policy.”
Ordering pizza while black isn’t easy in one area of South Florida.
At a Fort Lauderdale Pizza Hut located at 1239 S. Federal Hwy, there is a policy to not deliver to a predominantly African-American part of the city after 7 PM.
The discovery was made by locally based journalist Adam Weinstein while he was standing inside the restaurant picking up a pizza.
Weinstein, who is the senior editor of the popular Task&Purpose website snapped two photos of a large notice next to a map of their delivery area declaring “we don’t deliver to northwest (D-4) after 7PM.”
The notice, which refers to Fort Lauderdale’s Sistrunk Boulevard community, was clearly visible to customers.
The Miami New Times called the Pizza Hut and asked a manager for an expiation for the policy.
Photo Credit: Adam Weinstein/ Twitter
The manager said that it was a “corporate policy.”
As the Miami New Times points out, Pizza Hut has a history of not delivering to black neighborhoods in Florida.
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Cover Photo: Adam Weinstein/ Twitter
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1ne Bullet: The BLM Inspired Non-Profit Working To Prevent Others From Becoming A Hashtag
A Miami-based nonprofit foundation is working to raise awareness about police brutality and anti-black racism through affordable t-shirts.
“Truth is, we’re all one bullet away from being a #hashtag,” is a quote that’s been making its rounds on social media ever since 2014.
It can be seen written on cardboard signs at #BlackLivesMatter protests across the country.
It’s also the quote that inspired Marcus Spady and Paul “JoJo” Ghartey to call their foundation “1ne Bullet” when they established it in July of 2016.
The name is the perfect way to emphasis how quickly black lives seem to end.
If the name isn’t enough to generate interest, then the website certainly will be.The first thing you notice when you visit www.1nebullet.org is the black and white protest photos, most of which are pretty famous on social media.
You can click through and see photographs of a protester with a chain around his wrist.
Another photo shows a woman holding a sign reading, “Who do you call when cops murder?”The second thing you’ll notice is that Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” is on auto play, and starts blasting after a few seconds on the home page.
“We are at a time where we must unite in order to bring changes to a system that targets and systemically oppresses Black people in America,” the about us page reads. “America has never been a safe place for Black people and due to recent events, we are at a time of necessary action and a consciousness shift.”
The plan is to unite people through the #ItCouldveBeenMe (ICBM) shirts. The shirts are black and have a very simple design: the wearers’ name on the front with a hashtag next to it and the phrase “It could’ve been me” on the back.
Each shirt is customized to who purchases it: you have to specify a name when you place the order. They are available in sizes small-3XL.
The shirts are $15 flat.
Since 1ne Bullet is a non-profit, the price only covers the cost of manufacture and shipping. According to the 1ne bullet website, any proceeds that could be gained will be donated to charities and families of those who have been affected by police brutality.
Spady and Ghartey, the two men who are guiding the one-month-old foundation, are pretty young themselves.
They are both recent graduates of the University of Miami.
They are also both members of the black Greek organization Kappa Alpha Psi, also commonly referred as the Nupes.
They are two black men in their 20s—a demographic category that is often highlighted in discussions surrounding police brutality and its victims.
“Outraged with the tragedies surrounding the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of the police, we saw these tragedies as something that we could easily become a victim to, and we wanted a way to give the community a platform in order to reflect on what it means to be Black in America,” the site reads.
The two are common features of the University of Miami’s Kappa Instagram page, and have been photographed alongside members of the University of Miami administration, including university president Julio Frenk.
Spady even has a picture with Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin.
He met her at the Back to School Extravaganza hosted by the Trayvon Martin Foundation.
“Ms. Sybrina loves the idea!” the photo’s caption reads.Although 1ne Bullet’s social media accounts are still pretty new, it is the main way the word is getting out about the shirts.
The Instagram accounts features a photo of a young woman who had purchased the shirt and customized it with her full name, a sign that the 1ne Bullet team is taking the right steps forward.
There’s also word-of-mouth: another way for Spady and Ghartey to tell as many as possible about their mission.
And if their mission statement rings true, they will be telling the world about 1ne bullet.
“We cannot stand and let one of us become another #hashtag,” the last line reads. “The time is now.”
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
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